Touché Amoré Release Cover of The Strokes' "Hard to Explain" In Honor of Is This It?'s 20th Anniversary (Bandcamp Friday Exclusive)

Touché Amoré & The Strokes (SOURCES: Epitaph Records / @thestrokes)

It's the return of Bandcamp Fridays! While we really don't have the time to go through the endless amounts of emails we've received to give you some recommendations this fine day... we will say this: go and support your favorite artists, big or small. Today, Bandcamp is waiving their fees for 24 hours and providing the artists with 100% of their sales raised. We will, however, provide a recommendation released by one of our favorite bands, Touché Amoré. The Los Angeles-based Post-hardcore band led by Jeremy Bolm and featuring lead guitarist Clayton Stevens, rhythm guitarist Nick Steinhardt, bassist Tyler Kirby, and drummer Elliot Babin have shared something special in honor of today's Bandcamp Friday festivities.


"To celebrate the 20 year anniversary of Is This It? by The Strokes, we did a cover of "Hard to Explain," which will be available tomorrow exclusively for Bandcamp Friday," Touché Amoré posted last night. Their cover of "Hard to Explain" is just that, hard to explain. It's just something you ned to hear, if you're a fan of both or either band. Touché Amoré manage to give it their own character and charisma, but it still maintains that jaunty Indie/Garage Rock vibe of The Strokes' original. Bolm even employs that radio static-like technique Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas used throughout that pre-chorus we all know too well: "Raised in Carolina... I'm not like that... tryin' to remind her... when we go back." Now, this is far from Touché Amoré's first time releasing a somewhat unexpected cover, as they've previously covered The National, Nirvana, The Replacements, and Pixies.


For the latter, Jeremy Bolm was recently emloyed by the good people at Two Minutes to Late Night to help execute a cover of "Where Is My Mind?" for their ongoing COVID-19 "bedroom" cover series. Bolm is joined by Colin Young (God's Hate, Twitching Tongues,) Steve Sladkowski (PUP,) Salem Vex (Bloodbather,) Jon Lhaubouet (Vein,) AWE wrestler Orange Cassidy, and, of course, Jordan Olds as Gwarsenio Hall for a roaring rendition of the Fight Club stand-out. That's all available exclusively on YouTube, but it might become available one fine Friday on Bandcamp—who knows! Touché Amoré's "Hard to Explain" is available as a Bandcamp-only download for Bandcamp Friday. Although, this might just be the first in an as-yet-unannounced series, as the Bandcamp cover features mysterious text which reads "COVERS VOL. 1." Touché Amoré's most recent full-length album, Lament, was released last year on Epitaphs Records.